A slight misnomer in the title – as to be honest playtime will be the next post of this saga.
I am going to cover our study/guest room plus the family bathroom today.
Firstly an update on what’s been happening – we had over the main suppliers (and their families) for a barbecue this past week. It is nice to actually relax and socialise with people that you spend so much time working with. The reason for the year (plus) delay was that I was waiting for my smoker to arrive (plus then some time to get comfortable using it) before inviting them. Maybe not so interesting to you – but the meat menu was smoked ribs and homemade sausages plus normal (bbq) grilled sausages, burgers and chicken wings – plus the standard paraphernalia of complementary cuisine and drinks.
I am not sure if I mentioned this in the last blog – but our intercom system has stopped working. I called the alarm company that installed it and they want an annual support fee for the cameras, intercom and alarm – the price was “Al Hapanim” (“al hapanim” approximately is used for “way over the top”) – so I called the electrician that installed our network and sound system. He will come for free and check the system out – at that point we will get a price and make a decision.

On to the rooms – We will be starting with the study. This room is also used as our main guest bedroom. The main negative from this room is that it is sandwiched between the two boys rooms (one next door and the other opposite).

The first two photos show the study as it was when we bought the house. Like all the rooms – this one changed size and shape but we also completely moved the position of the cupboards as can be seen in later photos.
The next photo was the destruction of the study.
Like the phoenix – out of destruction comes rebirth (although a lot slower in this case). The photo of the walls being built is from the stairs and the study is on the right hand side of the picture. The other photo speaks for itself.
After the windows were installed I took photos of all of them. This photo below shows the light fitting as well – and so I have included it as we really struggled to find these lights. We were looking for a really common UK light fixture that uses multiple spots (3 or 4) and swivels easily to point wherever you want them. This light was the nearest that we could find. We used them in all the upstairs rooms (except the playroom)
The following two photos are professional and therefore are using “props” that we do not have or use in the house….

On to the bathroom – possibly the most used room in the house……
As normal, I am starting with the beginning. This was the area as it first was – a bedroom. This is the area that you can most easily see how much we changed the interior layout of the house. Everyone who went into the old building could not understand the waste of space that we turned into a bathroom and tv/playroom. You can see part of that transformation below.
Again, we started with the destruction and moved on to the building – not a surprise really.
Below is the first interesting feature. We had to drop the ceiling so that we could put the air conditioning manifold in this area. Every air conditioning pipe for every unit in the house is connected here – that is 9 units in the house plus the compressor unit of the roof.
The bath was almost the first thing installed – this is shown after protection in the photo below.
The photo below shows the area which will become our utility room – it is small, but has plenty of storage. The only thing missing is a sink – but it is next to the bathroom so there isn’t far to go.
After installing the bath we started the tiling. This can be seen in the two photos below.
Below is our sink and vanity unit.
The following 3 photos are professional and so once again have props that are not ours. Our bathroom in real life does not look like it is in an expensive restaurant or hotel – honest (especially after the kids’ rushed morning ablutions….)

That’s all for today.

This is possibly the penultimate post. The next post will include the 2 indoor play areas. Depending on the number of photos I may include photos of the roof. I may include it in another post.
We have not covered in this blog the rental unit that we have downstairs.

So – another month has passed and what’s new with the house?
We are making progress slowly but surely.

Yaniv has been here once more to continue finishing jobs – there are still a few last things that need doing but he has told us that he has a big job on now and is not going to be available till October. He is still owed the last installment of money and he has not asked for it!

The LED lighting in the kitchen, dining room, lounge area and master bedroom have been installed, and looks great.

Metalwork – Lior came and fixed the movement in one of the points of the netting over the play room. There is now a big hole which needs to be filled in (hopefully before October). We are waiting for him to put a plate up to hold the interior keypad for the front gate.

The curtain company came to put up the curtains that weren’t done the first time. The blind on the door to the outside balcony is fine. The curtains by the window over the fitted drawers are too long – although we told the company that there would be cushions on these seats….so the curtains need to be shortened…the cushions were made from the same material as the sofas and look great.

The sofas have been cleaned (and made dirty again since by the kids) and are now the same height, which we are pleased about. It was relatively simple to fix in the end.

Piano has been stained, piano stool has been re-covered, both look great.
We have 2 French antique chairs in the lounge that have been stained and covered to match everything else, we know it is a crime to manipulate antiques, but they are really comfortable and look perfect. It also came out relatively cheap even with the staining and re-upholstering, compared to other equivalent options.
Chairs have been stained and re-upholstered – they look FANTASTIC!!!
We also bought a couple of beanbags and beanbag chairs for the loft play area, and both kids immediately took a beanbag for their room.

We had a leak in the small pond/water feature that has been fixed by the gardener. We need to fill it up and check it is ok and not leaking anymore.

Alarm is now basically fully up and running and we are linked to the call centre who if necessary can contact the local police.

Carpentry – Danny put the glass in the dining room unit, the mirror in our bedroom and we now have a few more shelves for the bookcase. He actually overcharged us accidentally but immediately accepted his error and very quickly paid us back the difference.

Doors – still no progress with Hermetix – what a surprise!

A/C – we now know how to used the timer. The balance seems to be a bit better.

The music/multimedia system is now fully up and running. We are looking to use a provider such as Netflix for streaming and downloading films, but are worried that the changes to TV settings will affect the stereo system. We have sent Kobi an email and are waiting to hear back from him.

Two areas where we have had issues have been the heating system and the aquarium…

There seems to be a problem with the motherboard of the heating air-pump (note this was brand new and not been used!!!) We were not impressed. The card is being replaced next week…and hopefully then the heating system will be fully working (not that we need it now, but in October we want to be able to use it)

Aquarium – we now have lots more fish and the tank is very active and looks good. One fish died but otherwise everything seems fine BUT…Uri came to install the lighting and found that the cover of the aquarium was made in such a way that he couldn’t get the light in. Danny is working on a solution which we hope will be straightforward. Also he couldn’t put the air pump in because there are electricity wires – but no sockets…we need to get the electrician to fix it so the pump and lights can be plugged in.

So that’s the update. Hopefully the curtains and heating will be fixed next week and we will make progress with the aquarium problem

Two months on – and we still haven’t finished, but we are moving in the right direction (but only on Tuesdays when Adam works at home). One day the tortoise will overtake the hare and we will have completed everything. Then it will be time to paint again ….

Kablan – The Kablan actually returned to fix some small electrical preferences, clean up the rain damage (but not yet fix it) in the rental and to do some general finishing and cleaning. He has more to do – but he is getting there slowly.

Dining room light – On Shabbat we had moved the plastic tables (see later) from under the light and put them in the lounge as we needed some more space than was available in the dining area. Our very tall nephew who was staying with us accidentally knocked into the light whilst playing with the boys – and it fell. The light not the nephew! Luckily the wire connection was strong enough to stop the light becoming gravitationally introduced to the floor in a destructive manner. The electrician actually came by within 12 hours of me telling the Kablan what had happened and put it back in a position that is not quite correct – but we can get that fixed later. Crisis averted and saved by the wire.

Kitchen – The food disposal unit was actually installed correctly – but a rubber washer was in the plug hole which was stopping the protective cover/key from engaging and starting the system working! It has now been “fixed” – for a fee of course. But the install guy was nice, fixed a few small things that should have been done slightly differently and has also given us a contact for someone that can fix it if we have issues in the future.

Doors – Hermetix still need to get back to us about their issues.

Blinds and Curtains – Most of the blinds and curtains have now been installed. One was made incorrectly and would not have allowed the external door (it covered) to open – this was taken back to be replaced. Our lounge is also missing two curtains – which was actually quite good as after the curtains were measured we had some fitted drawers/seats installed in niches that will affect two of the curtain lengths. We are waiting for them to come back and re-measure.

Carpentry – The toy storage and shelving in the attic has been finished – and is (very) slowly being filled (and emptied again by the kids). Our main bookshelves were installed. After we put in the books, we decided that we really needed some extra shelves and so Danny put in some more holes. We will get 3 or 4 more shelves in a week or so to accommodate these new holes.
The electricity box now looks like a cupboard which is a lot better than it was and a click on the Harmonica door to our wardrobe has been fixed by replacing the noisy hinge.
The aquarium/bar unit – This is almost a topic on its own. It has now been almost finished (it needs some tape to be removed tomorrow and some tiles to be added as a panel at the bottom). It looks really great – and not too complex on the outside, but Danny told us that this was a very complex piece of work – so much so that he was actually worried about it until it had been completely installed. He is very proud of it.

Aquarium – We now have 14 fish. 10 yellow ones that seem to like escaping through the water pipes to the outside tank plus 4 fairly rare strawberry albino cichlids. We desperately need a “cleaning” fish to get rid of the algae on the wall of the tank.

Air Conditioning – The issue with Natanel’s control panel was actually an electrical problem that has since been fixed. We have two other issues – one is balance in the main area where the lounge area is not as cool as the kitchen/dining area and the second is that we can’t get our heads around the timer function (for Shabbat). We will call the Air Conditioning guy soon to get some advice.

Music System – Kobi came back and did some cleaning up of the wires. He still has another visit to make.

Sofa and Table – These finally came today. The sofas had some dirt on it which the seller cleaned off but left a water (or soap) stain on it. He is going to get it professionally cleaned before we pay for it. This material is supposed to be easily cleanable – if you follow the instructions. The instructions in fact weren’t followed to the letter!

Table continued – We have tried to contact someone to create some custom pads. We are waiting for her to respond to our query. It is really nice not to be using plastic tables as our only eating option. The next project is re-upholstering and staining the chairs and the piano. The chairs are being collected in a week and most of the piano (all removable parts) will be taken either on the same day – or a week later. We had to wait this long as the material arrived with the furniture. Talking of material – we are now having some cushions made to sit on the drawer/bench units in the lounge that were built for us by Danny.

Windows – The doors now have key locks on them and Baruch from Andersen came to take photos for his website. He is also looking to see if he can arrange to bring over the smoker that I want from the States. I am awaiting this with baited breath whilst Joelle is hoping that he can’t to save us some money – although she never complains when eating the smoked ribs, brisket, chicken etc!

We haven’t written much because there is not much to write. Our Kablan has left and will return in about 2 months once we have found all the issues. he will then fix these issues and we will then pay the last 7% or so of his money.
We have just been busy with upgrades.
As almost always, I will start in the most important room of the house.

Kitchen – We had problems with the main cookbook bookshelf. It kept leaning forwards. It has been fixed (in different ways) twice now and Danny has finally appeared to have solved the issue. He didn’t complain at all – he just became more “aggressive” in the fixings and fixing points that he used. He reckons with the current fixings that the shelf could hold around 180kg. We are not going to try this!
The microwave shelf has now been fixed and the microwave is in its planned place.
The food disposal unit is hopefully going to be fixed this week.
The robotic vacuum cleaner (i-robot Roomba) is stored underneath the pantry cupboard and is doing a great job with cleaning dropped food from the kids. We were originally having trouble with getting the robot to enter the area by the breakfast bar – but have managed it by playing with the “virtual wall” which comes with the unit.

Baseboards / Skirting board / “Panellim” – Most of these were put in by the Kablan. They will be finished once everything else as been completed. If I need to name this in a different language – please let me know 🙂

Hermetix Doors – We are still waiting on Hermetix to fix the problems that we have with these doors.

Carpentry – The Delkoub cupboard that we have has a back piece of wood (very thin) coming away from the actual cupboard. This is because we used the plug socket which is behind the cupboard. This part of the cupboard was poorly measured by Delkoub – they should have made this one drawer slightly shorter.
– Danny has been working hard on our other carpentry work. We now have a harmonica door to our walk-in wardrobe as well as a very narrow bedroom linen cupboard and matching bedside tables. We also have wooden shelves just to finish off the niche surfaces.
In the lounge, we have a couple of drawers in niches that have been designed to be topped with cushions and to be used as extra seating. We also have a wooden shelf in the niche over the piano.
The boys’ bathroom now has a harmonica door to separate the bathroom area from the laundry area. We also have a new cupboard and shelves in the laundry area.
The aquarium area still needs a few questions answered before it can be built. The attic units and bookcase on the stairs are now being built.

Boys bathroom – the towel rail has now been replaced and put up (by me). It is a little loose as the person that put in the holes damaged the tiles and fixed it with silicone sealant which moves. We have the same issue with the toilet roll holder. These will need to be fixed.

Playroom – The net has now been installed and can comfortably hold 5 adults. There were 6 kids playing on it today.
We enjoyed laying on it for a rest before Shabbat as well.

Music system. This was fully connected and was working, but has stopped again. We think it is because the video cameras are using the same IP address as one of the stereo pieces. This will be fixed soon, due to Omer and Aveilut we are not too worried about this at the moment.

The Electrician came a couple of weeks back and fixed things that weren’t working. Took the guest light off the Shabbat time-switch and fixed a few other small bits and pieces. He will need to come back – but this was known and planned.

Aquarium – The aquarium guy came but could not bring any fish with as there was a parasitic infection at the suppliers he went to. We are getting some fish towards the end of the week. When he came, he brought us a new pump for the outside pond (with UV filter) which really cleaned up the dirty water very quickly.

Water Damage – We got a call from the tenants after the heavy rainfall (Rainfall in an Israeli desert in the middle of April – G-d was obviously being nice to us and showing an issue while the Kablan was still around!). It ended up being caused by the heating engineer having removed (and not replaced) a part around the pipe entrance through the roof which was designed to stop any water entering. This has been fixed now and we are waiting for the water damage to dry before having it fixed (on the Kablan’s bill of course – not sure if he will charge this to the company that did the hot water installations).

Railings – The outside railings, gate and a few window security bars (for the renters – we are using an alarm instead) have now also been installed. The house is finally safer from vertical drops!

A/C – The panel that runs the unit in Natanel’s room keeps going blank when we try to set it using the time-switch…we will contact Kobi and hopefully get it sorted out quickly.

That’s it for now. We haven’t quite finished, but the house is definitely nice to live in now. We have had people staying with us and guests every single Shabbat since we moved in. It is great to feel happy enough with where we live to invite people again.

Very little has happened, but we have been learning lots about the house.
Due to Pesach things slowed down – but we are now picking up the pace again

We will start with the most important room in the house – namely the kitchen
Kitchen – all doors have been fitted, including dishwasher fronts. We have shelves now on which we have put all the cookery books that we use most often. We are adjusting the shelf where the microwave will go as it is not deep enough. The food disposal unit is still not working – we have to get it properly installed rather than using a plumber. we now have 4 counter stools for the breakfast bar (bar stools are taller than counter stools)

Doors (Hermetix) – all main doors are installed – most of the lock covers have rust on them so will need replacing. A couple of rubbers on the bottom of the doors need sorting out…and we still don’t have the mastered locks we want – so Hermetix have to come back. We do have the cell number of the guy who did the installation of the doors, and he seems to be helpful.

Carpentry – Delkoub finished the cupboards in Natanel’s room after the a/c unit was moved slightly and the front cover taken off.
– Natanel’s bed now has ladders on both sides, and has been put together.
– Danny has been hard at work. The following have been installed since the last blog was posted:

Bathroom – all accessories except for 1 towel rail have been put up. We have to replace the one towel rail which came damaged. As an aside, we did not like the towel rail which came in the range so we used a straight toilet roll holder which works fine.

Windows – These have been finished and the windows and Andersen doors have been painted. We now have to put up all the mezuzot.

Curtains – have been ordered after going to the shop to finalise which materials we are using for the various curtains and blinds. There will be a delay for the duettes as the old catalogue materials are not available and the new catalogue had not yet arrived

Aquarium – has been installed and is now filled with water. we have to decide if we are putting in fish before or after Danny finishes the unit around it. We will probably wait as it should only take a few weeks. We think that the pump may be slightly too strong as the water is coming in faster than it is going out. We will talk to Uri. After he finished last week the plumber came to put the tap in that was needed outside.

Outdoor pond in garden – this had already become a breeding ground for mosquitoes…so we have turned on the pump to keep the water moving, added some fish and a couple of small frogs. Most of the mosquito larvae have already been eaten. The other issue is that a lot of sand ended up in the pond due to the recent rain and so we are changing the pump to a filter which should help to clean the water.

Alarm – this has basically been installed and finished. We need to make a few small adjustments, including a fixed IP address for the house so we can see the feed for the camera.

Music system and network – basically finished but will need tidying up once necessary sockets are in place. These could only been done after the cupboard was finished so this is a job for the electrician…

Electrician – we need to write a list of all the outstanding jobs for the electrician and pass this on to the Kablan – will hope to get this done tomorrow.

Telephone – when bezeq came to connect our tenant’s line we were told to change the cable as it was very old – this was duly done but in the process all the lines were messed up. We ended up with our tenant’s internet line and no telephone, while they had nothing. This has since been fixed by bezeq.

Generally a productive week, hopefully with more to come over the next couple of weeks. The place has to be livable in 5 weeks’ time with tenants moving in in 3 weeks’ time. Now the pressure is going to start to build as everything is still waiting on …..

Windows – This was the step back. They were supposed to be at the supplier’s warehouse today, but there was a port strike in Haifa and the bad weather closed the port once the strike was over. We do know that the ship arrived on Tuesday – the day the strike started. We do not know if the windows came off the ship and are awaiting customs – or still on the boat. If still on the boat – then it is not still in the port as due to high winds all boats were sent out into the open sea. Once the port opens properly there will be a backlog – no idea for how long, nor where we are in the “queue”. On the good side – the windows are basically here and they weren’t travelling on snow laden roads in a truck. That really is a scenario we don’t want to think about. We have a week of good (or better) weather predicted from Motsei Shabbat and hopefully we will be able to start the work during this time. Everything “movable” is waiting on the windows and doors so that we have security in the house.

Doors – More problems with Hermetix. Tamar has told us they were causing trouble but will not elaborate further. It was something to do with the protective staining on the interior wood of the front door. They were probably asking for some more money and thought it was acceptable to provide unprotected wooden finishes with the Israeli sun and heat. We still haven’t been given the internal sample door to approve and time is moving on. Supposedly the front door will be installed on the 4th March with the internal doors on the 8th and 9th. As tenants are moving in on the 9th we really need them to manage these dates.

Garden – The gardener has returned from holidays in Thailand, China and Eilat (the life of a gardener during shmitta seems quite nice!) and has built the pond outside our bedroom and will be finishing off this water feature soon. He has carried up the stepping stone tiles as well which will be laid in the near future. He is looking into a price of a guillotine for us to cut up the logs in a lot quicker fashion.

Electricity/Rubbish Boxes – These were finished off with a little tiling and the current electricity box was put into the rubbish bin area. I called Yaniv (the Kablan) to ask why it was done this way – and he explained that we are actually getting a new (smaller) box from the electricity company which will go in the other area. Until then we cannot use the area for the bin!

Electricity – The electricity company finally received the last email that I sent them with my approval signature and they told me that I had to go to their office to pay due to the large amount. I finally did so on Wednesday. The Kablan said that the electricity company are allowed to change the price (always upwards) until the bill is paid. Afterwards they will not change the price – even if it costs them an extra 50,000 NIS for digging up roads etc. We are glad that we have paid. We now just have to wait for them to do all the work – which will probably be after we move in to the property.

Railings – The outside front railings were re-measured and the design re-finalised this week. The inside stair railings are in with a couple of provisos. The wooden handle has not been installed – it will be last after all painting is completed – and the extra supports which stop the railings from moving have not been installed either – so these railings are currently not safely useable. This will be fixed soon.

Hammock – The railin was installed – but was enough askew (supposedly due to a metal bar in the wall) that is was obviously not straight. When measured we noticed that on one edge there was a 1.5cm drop between the centre and the side. This has now been corrected and the actual hammock has been ordered. It will be available in about 2 weeks but will only go in after everything else in the room is completed – so that it does not get damaged by paint or air-con and other electrical (tv/speakers/lights etc) installations.

Downstairs Kitchen – They took away and replaced the cupboards that were the wrong size. The counter top is being installed on Sunday. One of the cupboard doors has got some paint on it – so it will up to the Kablan to clean this effectively or replace it.

Upstairs Kitchen – Our kitchen cupboard shells have been put in. The only doors that have been included are the pocket doors on the tall cupboard next to the fridge freezer. The other doors will be installed just before we move in to stop the workers using the kitchen as we are planning to move into a kosher for Pesach kitchen with absolutely no work. We are spending all this money – we might as well have some additional benefit from it! When the counter top person installs the downstairs Caesar-stone he will also measure our kitchen for the tops. The carpenter also took a sample handle so that he can put holes in the cupboard doors back in the workshop where there is more control.

Bathrooms – All the carpentry units for the bathrooms are ready and most of them have been installed. The guest toilet vanity and our en-suite units look fantastic. The boys’ bathroom unit is waiting to be installed – but is in the house.

Next Carpentry step – Dany the carpenter (actually a good English speaker) is coming on Monday to measure and finalise the aquarium unit. I am assuming that Tamar managed to arrange for Yaniv and Uri (Aquarium guy) to be there as well. At the same time they will finalise options for around the fireplace.

Painting – Almost the whole house now has a coat or two of paint. Natanel’s room is Man City sky blue (nobody’s perfect 🙂 ) and Ya’akov’s room is a really nice pastel green – he obviously now wants blue like his brother. We said hard luck!

Network – We were obviously charged a little bit extra to replace all the wiring as we have had to move the network cables but this has been done now. The advantage is that I now have about 30m of cat7 cable which I should be able to use to make spare ethernet cables (I would usually use cat 5 – but should work just as well). I already have ethernet connectors (rj45) and the appropriate crimping tool to do this myself. The additional dropped ceiling to transfer the wires has been added. It actually makes the entrance look more finished.

Moldings – These are being installed at the beginning of this week.

Furniture – Tamar has gathered together all the info for ordering the material we need for ottomans, chairs, piano stool and cushions etc. This order – with an order for the specific ottomans to connect our sofas will be going in today or Sunday.

Smoker/etc – I have made absolutely no progress on arranging the shipping of this (and a few other items). I really need to do this next week. If anyone out there can give us a lead for a reliable shipper from Austin, Texas it would really be appreciated…

We think that is it. We really did not realise we have so little time left until we have to move in. No wonder that Tamar is getting worried and pushing everyone constantly. We understand that not everything will be finished by the time that we move in – but the basics will be. The more utilitarian carpentry (like bookcases) will be completed afterwards. We have no choice but to move in as we have 6 friends coming to stay with us on the day that we move in!
Having space for guests to stay is an integral part of our house that we have sorely missed over the last five years.

With the planning permission sorted we have started moving a lot faster – we will start with the windows.

Windows – The playroom and the lounge windows have now been enlarged. We now have a 3.2m wide hole in our lounge overlooking a large tree (which is blocking our view of the wadi and desert). We will be talking to the Iriya to see if we can reduce the size of this tree to give us a nicer view. The Kablan while opening up the big window found a support which wasn’t found previously and so he spoke to the engineer….

Structural engineer – The structural engineer is insisting on a support beam plus special preparations (some sort of metal tiles and drivers into the wall) for the lounge window. We were expecting this – but it hadn’t been priced just in case it wasn’t needed – oh well. He has also requested additional support for the french doors in our bedroom. This wasn’t expected or planned at all as there was already a door there (but a lot smaller – and put in without permission).

Underfloor heating and hot water – The underfloor heating has now been completed in the dining area, kitchen, hall and our bedroom. It has not been done in the lounge as the window and support have to be completed first. We have requested that this heating will not be near the piano (it damages the wood and destroys the instrument) and also not immediately next to the fish tank as it may make the fish tank temperature more complex to control.
We asked for the interior pipes for the hot water heat collectors to be copper rather than the steel that is normally used in Jerusalem. The installer has said that this is the same price but he will not give us a warranty on it. When we asked why – we were told that it was due to the fact that water freezes in Jerusalem and copper pipes burst. We told the Kablan that copper is used as standard in England where the temperature regularly drops to below freezing in the winter. It never gets down to freezing in Ma’ale Aldumim and anyway the installer can put antifreeze into the pipes as we have requested a closed system. They will get back to us! By the way, the reason that we want copper is because it is more efficient and the water gets hotter quicker.

Plumbing – The pipework in our bathroom for the sink had sunken whilst the concrete was setting. I walked in during the week to see the poor plumber drilling out the pipes (through and around the underwater heating pipes) in order to re-set them. It was noticed when they were about to get to the tiling.

Tiling – the tiler has now almost completed our bedroom, bathroom, cupboard area, downstairs entrance, dining room and kitchen. He has also carried on with the stairs. Nothing has been completed to the edges as the walls have not been finished and they wish to get a perfect edge.

Kablan – the kablan is looking for grey outside tiles for us to use for the flooring. This may take a while as the natural Israeli grey tiles are of poor quality. Israel mainly does good quality beige colours. He will also be collecting the lights slowly as required from our supplier when he is ready to install them.

Hifi – I made a mistake in last weeks blog. I mentioned some lighting that the electrician had put in the ceiling of the lounge. I was wrong – these are the cables for the speakers. All the cables for the speakers appear to have been installed now.

Basement bathroom – Looks great! This has now been cleaned up and a temporary toilet and hand washing facilities have been installed for the workers (after 3 months!). The doorway has also had a plastic sheet attached to help keep it clean (and I assume for some privacy as well).

Carpentry – The design has now been fully completed and sent off for quotes. We are waiting in dread to hear back as this is likely to be the second most expensive bill (after the Kablan).

I haven’t written for two weeks because very little had happened except…. the planning permission.

Planning permission – the day that I wrote the previous post we (finally) received the approval for planning permission in the mail. Not the final planning permission – just the approval that we will receive the final planning permission once certain documents are signed/provided. Only one of these documents was my requirement. The following day I took this document to the “building department” of the iriya (city council) and paid them a deposit of 3000NIS which we get back once my kablan (contractor) finishes his work. The other 5 or 6 documents were from the structural engineer and he worked SO slowly. In fact it has taken him 2 weeks and as far as I am aware this documentation may not even have arrived yet (the third date he gave us for his documentation to arrive at the iriya was today). Assuming that the paperwork will only get in today we will have to wait for the paperwork to be sent to us by post. When this arrives we should be able to sort the אגרה (payment) and then get the final planning permission. Once we have been given the ishur (permission) the builders can start the work. Everyone is waiting on this.

I would not recommend my structural engineer – not because of his work – but because he is very slow and not easy to contact when you wish to obtain updates.

Kablan – Once we get the final planning permission then we can start doing work on preparing the windows. We are not yet aware if there will be any extra cost attached to this as there are a couple of places where the windows may need to be strengthened.

Windows – we have been working with Andersen windows to finalise our exact requirements and arranging a quote. We need to make the order very soon so that we do not miss a shipment from the USA to Israel arriving at the end of January. There is an inherent risk in ordering the windows before the spaces have been completed for the windows – but this is fairly small and may allow us to move in more than a month earlier. We want to get in!
A lot of work has been put into getting the windows completed very quickly – and we have been constantly let down by our structural engineer.
The only issue that I had with Andersen Windows here is that they never told me that I would need to pay in dollars for the windows, because I knew that timings would be an issue I specifically brought money over from the UK and converted it into shekels. If I use this money I will be paying a double conversion fee. I have decided to use this money for other costs (we still have enough to pay!) and send money directly from the UK to Andersens instead.

Windows/Alarm – A question came up about the alarm with respect to fixed windows and insurance requirements. Do we need to have alarm sensors on fixed windows. The answer was that sensors are needed on all points of entry to the house. But only when we are out. We asked this because we had an issue fixing/hiding the alarm points on the corner windows. We therefore have interior alarm sensors for when we are out – and also a sensor for if glass breaks for when we are in the house. Problem solved.

Electrics – The electrician has started putting the wires into the conduit. He appears to have finished the basement and the ground floor. He has also added a conduit between the roof and the ‘TV’ area in case we ever want to put up a satellite for the one that we have removed from the house. We won’t want this as we do not really want TV. If we ever do decide on TV we would probably buy a US or UK IP address and then pay for Netflix or the equivalent.

Sound System – the boxes for the speakers have been put into the walls for the play room. Nothing has been put in to the lounge, kitchen or dining area so far – and so I assume that this will be built in to the plaster board features in the ceilings.

Tiling – The upstairs bathroom and all the upstairs has been completed – the entry-level, most of the stairs and our section are all that are left now. The stairs are last and the other sections are waiting on the underfloor heating. The underfloor heating is waiting on cutting out all the windows. So there is obviously a delay here.

Glass – we have approved the glass and mirror quote, but not arranged any payment yet. The glazier has given our builder the metal holders for the shower enclosures and these have been tiled in to the kids/guest bathroom.

Carpentry – We looked through all the carpentry plans that Tamar gave to us, made our comments and then Tamar made changes to the plan. We made more comments on this and now Tamar is going to choose materials and send off the plans for a quote. This is to get a basic idea, once things are slightly quieter we will go through materials with Tamar and then get the quote updated.

Lighting – We were hoping to look at “fancy” lighting for the dining area and the stairs (and anywhere else we have wall lights) on Friday, but Joelle had to go into work as her colleague wanted to swap so that she could go to some school activity for her kid. Joelle was nice (I wouldn’t have been as nice because her husband almost always refuses when we have made similar requests) and we will be going this Friday instead.

Net in playroom – Tamar has not had much luck with this, she is currently waiting on feedback from some companies that make the children’s play areas in parks and public soft play areas.

Punch Bag – We decided that we want to put up a punch bag – this will be really good for fitness and may also be good for the kids (and us) to let out some aggression/frustration. We haven’t told Tamar yet but it will go into one of the play areas (or even outside in the garden)

Concrete in the garden – we have tried multiple times to see examples of the concrete contractor’s work but we have had absolutely no luck, mainly because we were given only one address where the concrete is behind a security fence and the owners are never in. We were not given a phone number so that we can co-ordinate times and have a chance to look. Tamar is looking into this now.

To Do – we currently only have a few small tasks that sit on us now. The first is completing the building permission as soon as we can (hopefully within the next 2-3 days) the second is to look for (and buy) sheets for the beds so that Tamar can use those colours to decide on options for painting the bedrooms and third is to check the windows contract and arrange to sign/pay for the work to be done.

We have been continuing to move at a reasonable pace – but with the same single issue holding us back.

Planning permission: Our plans went to the “va’ada”/planning meeting on Thursday. We have been told that we will receive the answer by mail either yesterday or today. It wasn’t in yesterday’s post, we will check when we get home tonight. If it is not there then the structural engineer has told us to contact him and he will see what he can do.

Lighting: We spent a couple of hours in a lighting warehouse selecting the main lights that we will be using. Tamar actually had two meetings with them. The first was in the morning where she dismissed all the options we had already said we didn’t like. She did forget some lights that we brought over from the UK – and she has removed these lights from the quote. We still need to go shopping for the more fancy lights (dining area).

Integrated sound system: We met up with the sound guy at the house on Friday. We discussed the exact placement of everything as well as what we wished to connect to the system. He was slightly perplexed to hear that we have neither yes / hot nor a satellite box (cable TV etc) which is normally used as a gathering point for the sound system. He will be adding a streamer box to compensate for this. Afterwards, he came back to our current house to look at our current “boxes” and found that he has no way of connecting them to the system – so we will need to add a new DVD (or Blu-ray) player which was not planned. We should at least be able to use this to play any CD’s that we haven’t converted to mp3 yet. We also had to pay a deposit so that he could cover his initial purchases.

Alarm: We were looking through the plans and realised that the alarm did not have any panic buttons. We know that a panic option is available through the alarm keypads but we have to decide whether or not to add physical buttons or not. We definitely need one by our bedroom (which leads on to a hidden garden) but not sure about the front door.

Air conditioning: All the copper pipes are now in place (this was actually completed last week) and four of the internal units have been put on the walls. They have not yet been connected to the piping.

Walls / Finishing: Plans for closing off the pipes in the attic/loft area have been given to the Kablan. We are just creating a “new” wall using plaster board/ sheetrock and they will then be finished properly. We are not putting in any niches as in this room it really isn’t necessary.

Electricity / Plumbing: The electricity conduits have now all been put into place and the plumbing (cold/hot water pipes – not the hot water tanks nor the underfloor heating) with the exception of 1 garden point that is still open.

Tiling: The loft area has now been tiled. We put the American walnut wood tiles in the play area and cheap/simple tiles in the storage area. The wood tiles are so good that friends of ours that looked at the house over Shabbat thought that we had put down real wood. Tamar has given an alternative tiling plan to the Kablan as the tile manufacture suggests not to use the fish-bone design we originally wanted due to “lippage”. We are awaiting a full explanation of lippage and then we will decide whether or not to listen to the tile manufacturers.

Concrete: we still haven’t managed to look at the concrete example that we were sent as we had to look at the Carpentry plans on Friday (more about this later).

Kablan: We have now finished a “stage” of the work – electrical conduits and basic plumbing so according to the contract we paid the Kablan 30% of the contract price. Actually, we were supposed to pay 30% – but only paid 20% as we were expecting him to be further through by now (he is held up by the planning permissions of course) and the payment went through late as the bank’s computer systems were down on the day that the payment was planned. The payment went through today to arrive tomorrow! We will pay the other 10% in about 2 weeks once the window spaces have been enlarged and the windows have been ordered.

Design: Tamar has been working hard on the designs This can be split into three main areas:
Carpentry : We had a 3 hour meeting with Tamar on Wednesday and looked over the designs that were created. We commented on the work and took it back home to look over in more detail. We have made some changes and sent this back to Tamar just over a day ago. This included clarification requests, measurements of items we wish to store, small changes to doors etc, additional pieces and the removal of a large piece as it was not what we wanted due to a small misunderstanding about what we meant when we said we wanted a bookcase on the stairs. Tamar also sent us additional queries that we will discuss tonight. We will be spending at least an hour tonight looking through door/cupboard handles. The delights of carpentry! Once all this is completed Tamar will update the plans, await our approval and then send everything off to companies to have it priced out.
Kitchen: This is actually part of the carpentry design but so large that it requires a section of its own here. During our meeting Wednesday we sat in a kitchen carpentry store and used the opportunity to look at all the different options available to us (inside the units) from this company. It helped us decide which options to incorporate into the design.
Glass: Tamar sent us the design work for the shower glass dividers and 4 of the mirrors. She got us quotes and we went for a cheaper option with someone who does very good work – but not the best. He was at least a third cheaper and this wasn’t a cheap purchase. There are still 2 glass doors and maybe some mirrors we require. These extras are not so urgent as they will not stop work continuing.
Tiling: Due to a manufacturer “requirement” Tamar had to create a new tiling plan for the main floor of the house as mentioned above under tiling. It is up to us to decide whether we listen to the manufacturer or not.

We are leaving this post on a planning cliff hanger. We couldn’t even make it more exciting if it was planned. OK, we could but today/tomorrow we will find out what is happening with the planning permission and how it affects the rest of the work.

After a few slow weeks we are starting to gather momentum again – we are still being held up by planning permission so I will start there:

Planning Permission: I went in to the Iriyah (local council) to chat with those involved with the early parts of the planning permission process and they told me that my application goes to the “Va’ada” (meeting) during this week before the end of the month. After that I have to pay some money and do some tasks and that I should talk to my structural engineer who will guide me through the process. So, basically I now know that we are starting to make progress (after 6 weeks of waiting with our paperwork doing nothing due to chagim/festivals) but I have no idea how much longer after this stage we will need to wait to get the final planning permission so that we can order our windows. The windows will take about 2 months to be delivered.

Tiles: As far as I am aware the last of the tiles have now arrived. There is a possibility that we are waiting for just 1 box of a different tile (we were last week) but it may have come in with this final batch of tiles.The kablan/builder is planning on starting the tiling of the attic today – and then working his way down.

Plumbing: We now have both baths, and the shower installed in the house. The basement bathroom is completely tiled as well.

Plumbing Extras: I found out last week that the plumbing deliveries came without the bath taps. These taps need to be available at installation time as they cannot be installed at a later point. Therefore the kablan bought these taps and we will have to pay him for them – and take them off the plumbing order. The kablan has also been ordering the Caesar stone for finishing off the tiling edges and bathroom shelving as he works. This is quicker than him sending measurements to Tamar – and then having her obtain and then deliver it. We owe the kablan about 2000NIS for these bits and pieces so far.

Alarm: The alarm guy came last week. I am still not quite sure why he came – but I was there at the time and I made some very important changes. Basically the window alarms work by a unit which puts a beam across the windows. If the beam is broken then the alarm goes off. The alarm company had arranged that all these units will be “outside” the windows sticking out of the building at points where kids (and their footballs) will be constantly knocking and breaking them. This was extremely badly designed and required the common sense of a fly to realise that this just wouldn’t work with two young (6 and 10 year old) boys in the house. I arranged for the position of these alarm units to be moved within the window recesses. So, even though I did not see a reason for the alarm guy to come – it was lucky that he did come otherwise I would have been furious with his solution. As an aside, I found out that the alarm person that we are using actually works for a company (and not for himself as we thought) and he was off sick for a while. The company sent someone else – who made changes without telling us or discussing it with me. Tamar (the interior designer) complained and got the changes revoked and had the original alarm contractor put back onto our project.

Electricity: The electrician is continuing with putting in the conduit for the cables, alarm system, air conditioning and sound system. He obviously had to redo parts of the alarm which neither he nor the kablan were happy about – but that is hard luck as if they had thought for just a moment they would have spoken to me about the bad positioning of the sensors in the first place.

Air Conditioning: All of the Toshiba units (the main house) have arrived and the air conditioning team is installing all the copper piping for shifting the coolant throughout the system. The main external unit is enormous! It is over 6 – 7 ft tall and about 4ft wide and deep as well. It is now sitting on our roof and – trust me – it ain’t going nowhere.

Lintel above garage: I spoke to the kablan about this – and he knows that he has to fix it.

Parking Space Barrier: I found a remote-controlled solar parking space barrier that exactly fitted our requirements to stop others using our garage. I passed this info onto our kablan who showed it to a supplier of his. This supplier used to sell this device but found that there were issues with having enough electricity in the motor all the time. He therefore suggested an identical device that was powered from the mains. This is a cheaper solution as well (unless we get extra installation costs – but as we have a fixed electrical installation fee we will probably not pay anything extra here).

Garden: The final cleaning of the garden has been done and Joelle tried to go and see a fancy concrete installation example. The problem was that the address we were given has the concrete in their garden – but it is behind a security fence and no one was home at the time – therefore she couldn’t see it clearly. I will try and go tomorrow after a shopping trip for lights with Tamar.

Design: We had a telephone meeting last week with Tamar just to confirm that we all understand where we are at, and to discuss our next steps forward. We arranged 2 more meetings (lighting and carpentry) for the next week or two.

Garden composter: This came at the beginning of last week and I put it together on the day that I got it. With experience of this specific product – I do not like the door. It sometimes falls off when turning (or every time when a kid leaves the door facing downwards after playing with the handle).
I had my youngest son with me on the day that I built it – and the idiot (meant in the politest sense possible) as children often are – decided to play. He climbed over a railing on top of the garage and was standing on a platform less that a foot wide with no barrier between him and a 2.5 metre (9ft) fall onto a concrete pavement. He was throwing stones at a lamp-post because he liked the sound it made when they hit each other. As you can imagine I wasn’t very happy and a put a stop to it extremely quickly (and VERY carefully) so that he did not fall into a trip to the ER or worse…..

Doors: we have also discussed whether we would rather have a normal interior door – or a security door between the basement and the rest of the house.

Contract: Our contract states that we have a 10% leeway of extra work that will be done within the paid work. A lot of the garden work is being done within this leeway. The kablan sent us a status of the extra work that has been done (or has been approved) and we have about 3-5000NIS left until we run out of “free” work. There are some things on this list which we have queried – and Tamar is looking into them.

Moving on: The next major tasks we have are starting on the garden when the gardener is back from his holiday, windows once we have the planning permission, fireplace/smoker and concrete areas in the garden.

Guests: We also have our first guests invited to stay at the house! We have friends coming over from the UK to stay for a couple of weeks over Pesach! This is the first time we can easily put people up after making Aliya 5 years ago. Now all we have to do is finish on time!